Bittersweet
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: The number of people who understand Kirina's dislike for chocolate and Valentine's Day is limited to three - no, four - people.


**Wrote this super quickly after noting Kozoumaru and Kirina have a Bond in Inazuma Eleven SD. It's a side fic to UnderdogHero's story, "Sweet Sorrow" ( s/13208125/1/Sweet-Sorrow), taking place the day after while Kirina is still cleaning presents out of his locker.**

As much as Kirina hated Valentine's Day, he couldn't bring himself to actually throw out the piles of chocolate, candy, and cards he'd received. Even after he'd gone back to the dorms last night, the gifts had continued piling up in his locker. Some of them may have even been birthday presents instead. More of them were probably gifts doubling down on the fact that his birthday and Valentine's Day shared a date with extra candy, because for some reason everyone thought it was cute to do that.

Someone in the dorms would enjoy these gifts more than Kirina would. Once he sorted all of the love letters and romantic poems out of the mess, anyway. He didn't even like chocolate.

Getting back to the dorm meant taking a stroll through Raimon's soccer field. With the sun just beginning to set, Kirina hadn't expected to see anyone else there – but at the same time, he wasn't particularly surprised to see Kozoumaru, juggling a soccer ball on his knee.

"Looks like you had an eventful day."

Kozoumaru spoke up before he did. In fact, Kirina had initially planned on minding his own business. Now that he knew Kozoumaru didn't care if he talked to him, he remarked with a sigh, "That's one way of putting it."

"Valentine's Day is the worst," Kozoumaru agreed.

The ball continued to make steady _thump, thump, thump _sounds as Kozoumaru juggled it, switching expertly from his knee to his shoulder and then his thigh. It bounced off his forehead next. One, two, three… five times, and then Kozoumaru allowed it to drop far enough to catch it with the side of his foot. He lifted it back into the air, and as far as Kirina could tell, there was no particular pattern to his juggling. Kozoumaru might not even have to think in advance about what he wanted to do each time, and there was no denying he was a skilled athlete.

"I'm guessing it's because you didn't get any chocolates?" Kirina replied finally.

"Wrong," Kozoumaru replied, and that came as an unexpected relief.

Until now, he'd refused to admit to himself how exhausting it was to listen to Goujin complain about not getting the same things that frustrated Kirina to no end. Or knowing that Michinari might not leave his room for dinner that night, despite insisting he didn't care if he received any chocolate. It gave Hattori another reason to curse his cuteness, and Hiro his plain face.

At least Iwato had been pretty open about how it didn't bother him if the only chocolates he received today were friendship chocolates from Norika and Tsukushi and _maybe_ Anna, if she was feeling generous, but that in itself had the potential to cause problems. Apparently, Iwato already had eyes for someone else. That should've been great, except the last time a girl had called Iwato "cute", it was because she'd known she could convince him to buy her lunch and carry her books for a month. She'd refused to let him talk about their so-called relationship at school, and it had taken Norika pointing out that nobody was _that_ shy and Hattori and Kirina doing some investigative work on social media to snap him out of it.

So for Iwato's sake, he hoped that whoever he was admiring this time, was, well, actually interested in him too. Kirina had heard from Hattori that it was supposedly some new penpal of his, and Hattori had refused to say anything more than that.

In the meantime, Kirina chose to celebrate the simple fact that _someone_ finally understood where he was coming from. Someone other than Norika, Asuto, and Mansaku, that was.

"They're not gifts for me, they're gifts for Raimon's ace striker," he continued. "People only think I'm cool because I'm the ace striker."

His foot connected with the ball again, and this time he lifted it higher than before, well over his or even Kirina's head. As the ball began its descent, Kozoumaru jumped into the air, twisted, and kicked it into the goal almost angrily. He pumped his fist like normal, but with an even deeper scowl than usual.

"At least my birthday isn't on the same day."

"I'm surprised you know when my birthday is."

"How could I not know?" Kozoumaru scoffed. "The girls in our class have been talking about it for _weeks_."

Hearing that made Kirina groan. "Everyone thinks it's so funny to give me extra chocolate on my birthday, just because it happens to be on Valentine's Day! When I got to school this morning, Asuto had to hold a paper bag underneath my locker door to catch all of the candy that fell out!"

Kozoumaru didn't need to ask what his opinions on chocolate were. At this point, it was fairly obvious.

"You know what's better than chocolate?" he asked instead. "Ramen. Ramen will pave the road to world peace."

It was so unexpected that even Kirina, in the process of venting and holding two bags filled with the very cause of his frustration, chuckled. "Sounds more like a cure for world hunger. You just want to eat ramen, don't you?"

"Are you disagreeing with me?"

"No, ramen is definitely better than chocolate."

"Then let's go get some ramen," Kozoumaru replied, "to celebrate the absolute joys of being _single _and not caring about this stupid holiday."

"Should we invite Goujin?" Kirina asked, laughing harder at the way Kozoumaru's face twisted in response. Vocal as Goujin was, there was no way Kozoumaru was unaware of how disappointed he was to have not received any gifts yesterday.

"Oh, why not?" Kozoumaru scowled. "At least he can't complain while he's shoving food into his face."


End file.
